The Week in Android News

Boom. Website redesign. Device reviews. Tons of Android news, and so much fun this week. Next week we will be live at Google IO, and we expect tons of fun and awesome news to come from that as well, but first if you happened to miss anything be sure to check below, especially if in the market for a new device since we reviewed a TON!

Editorial: It's time to stop the 4G smoke in our eyes

You would think maybe AT&T might have learned something through osmosis, through the months and months and millions and millions of dollars of highly successful advertisements Apple has run promoting the iPhone. They've pulled at our heartstrings. They've played off our emotions. And they've been very, very good at it.

Android Central Editors' app picks for May 8, 2011

With summer just around the corner everyone is trying to get their summer muscles back in action, and be beach ready. Well, OK, not everyone. But if you are interested in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, hit the break with us as we look at some great workout applications this week.

Sprint's Nexus S 4G available today for $199 on contract

OK, all you boys and girls on Sprint -- the Nexus S 4G has finally arrived! You get the latest version of Android (that'd be Android 2.3.4, with the new Google Talk video chat), the promise of the latest updates, the "Pure Google" experience, all in a sleek, lightweight Samsung shell.

Oh, and Sprint's 4G Wimax data.

It's available today for $199 if you sign a two-year contract, or $549 if you want to skip such formalities. And remember that it's subject to Sprint's $10-a-month "premium data add-on" tax. But that's that price you've gotta pay. So, who's in?

LG Optimus Black hits Europe later this month, coming to North America, too

LG just announced that the Optimus Black -- as seen in our initial review -- will be released in Europe later this month. No specific date was given, but LG does note that 56 carriers in 50 nations worldwide have ordered the Android 2.2 smartphone, including in North America.

Need a refresher on specs? Here 'tis:

4-inch NOVA Display (700 nits brightness)

Android 2.2

Dimensions:122 x 64 x 9.2mm

Weight: 109g

1GHz processor (Texas Instruments OMAP3)

Wi-Fi Direct

5MP Rear Camera / 2MP Front Facing Camera

Gesture UI powered by Gyro-sensor

2GB Internal Memory and Micro SD up to 32GB

1,500 mAh Battery

If you're looking for some single-core awesomeness, you're going to want to check this one out, folks. (Again, see our initial review.) And if black's not your thing, it'll be followed by versions in white and pink. Full presser's after the break.

How to cheat at benchmarks (and why we should downplay their importance)

Benchmarks can be useful, whether we're talking mobile or any other computer hardware. There is a problem though -- you have to depend on everyone being honest. Let me explain. Anytime you see a video or a screenshot of a benchmark score, what you're really seeing is a measure of how the software interacts with the hardware. There are two big problems with that: No two Android phones run the same software, and there's always some joker who wants to cheat. recently our pal John from Phone Arena noted some Quadrant scores of a new handset that are just too low compared to the other phones listed. And good on John for pointing it out.

Sure, benchmarks can be fun, like see how little impact LG's UI has on the Optimus 2X compared to Stock Froyo, and they can be useful if you're running them yourself to gauge some changes you're making to your own software. But we're over it. We're going to base our judgment of performance based on performance, and not numbers.

It's just too damn easy to cheat at all benchmarks, because they are just Android apps. Look at all the other magic folks do with Android apps, and ask yourself -- are benchmarks so different that they can't be "hacked"? The answer is no, and we're going to show you how to hack at the easiest (but definitely not the only) one to manipulate, Quadrant.

Dell Venue hands-on and initial review

The Dell Venue remains unreleased on any U.S. mobile carrier, and is available only in an unlocked version for $499 directly from Dell. It's certainly a solid piece of hardware and it looks like Dell really took some time into crafting a sleek and attractive phone. The phone features a 4.1-inch AMOLED display that looks fantastic, but at 800x400 pixel, it isn't the top of the line, with higher-resolution qHD phones hitting the market. And unfortunately, I have to say the same about almost everything inside the Venue. Now don't get me wrong, the phone is far from a slouch, but on paper, it just doesn't stand up to some of the handsets we've been seeing rumored (and released) lately.

The Venue sports a first-gen 1 GHZ Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 512 MB of RAM. The camera is a respectable 8MP with autofocus, digital zoom, and flash. The Venue has 1GB of on-board memory with an included 16GB memory card, and is powered by a 1400 mAh removable battery. With quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and tri-band HSDPA 7.2 (850/1900/2100 Mhz), the Venue is ready to run on EDGE on either AT&T or T-Mobile, and supports high-speed HSUPA uploads (though it lacks full support for either carrier's 4G HSPA+ network.) It lacks the 1700MHz band for T-Mobile's 3G.

That 4.1-inch screen is different than the 4.3-inchers big shots like HTC and Motorola have been shipping with, but with its slightly-curved shape, it comes together to create a unique look. At 4.76 inches tall and 2.52 inches wide, the phone has a completely different feel than most others on the market. It's thin, too, at just slightly over a half inch thick. But don't be fooled by the Venue's svelte figure: it's not light, by any means. With battery in tow it weighs in at 5.8 ounces. It certainly won't weight you down, but you'll certainly know you're holding it.

At first glance it would appear that Dell has maintained a mostly Vanilla-flavored Froyo, though after some digging around it's obvious that the Venue does come (very lighty) skinned with a Dell experience. It isn't as noticeable as, say, HTC's Sense (and certainly not as obtrusive as Motoblur), but we can't call the Venue a true “Google experience.” Dell has equipped the Venue with its “Stage” software, which it says will “Organize your music, photos and more so what’s most important to you is always at the front and center and never more than a touch away.” We'll show you more of that in our full review.

We'll be putting the Venue through its paces in the next few days, so expect a full review shortly. For now, you can take a look at the quick video run-through and some pictures of our shiny new Venue after the break.

HTC Sense 3.0 lockscreen available for EVO 4G

Well, folks, if you're itching to get your hands on the Sense 3.0-touting EVO 3D like most of us with EVO 4Gs are, you can now have a taste of Sense 3.0 that you can download and install on your rooted EVO 4G. You have to be running a Sense 2.1-based Gingerbread ROM, then download and install the .apk file, reboot your phone, and voila! A beautiful new Sense lockscreen awaits. It works by dragging (or pulling, in HTC's terms) the semitransparent silver ring up to unlock and it performs quite smoothly at that.

One caveat I should mention -- the application shortcuts aren't working yet. In a fully functioning Sense 3.0 lockscreen, you'd be able to drag the ring to an app shortcut (that you have chosen) and the phone would launch straight into that app.

On the brighter side, we do have working music app controls and alarm snooze/dismiss buttons that all work nicely. Screenshots of these after the jump and download link at the source.

Costco teases possible Droid Charge re-launch

File this under "Tease," but it looks like we might soon get a re-launch date for the Samsung Droid Charge, following the postponement due to some LTE network tomfoolery. Costco's expecting expecting to receive word (presumably from Verizon) on Monday. We know the phones are in hand at retailers nationwide, just waiting to be sold. They just need to be given the green light.

All in all, we're not overly surprised by the GUI. It's using the fragments that make up a big part of the Honeycomb experience -- basically the ability to bring more information to a larger screen. In the example above, Seemic founder and CEO Loic Le Meur tweeted about the Air France Flight 447 crash. The tweet included a link via ping.fm (which Seesmic bought last year) to the boingboing article, and we see the page loaded in a fragment on the right. And presumably other content will at least be previewed that way, too.

We're not going to read too much more into these screen shots (there's one more after the break) just yet, except to say that this is just the beginning of the Honeycomb Twitter apps, folks, and Seesmic has previously said publicly that we'll get a look at its app next week at Google IO.

T-Mobile is continuing its push of 4G Android phones, and the latest looks to be the Samsung Exhibit 4G. The specs we're sure of, thanks to a tipster who sent a handful of pictures to T-MoNews, are TouchWiz, a front facing camera, Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread), and a model number of SGH-T759. Additional rumored specs include a 1.4 GHz ARM11 processor, a 5 MP shooter that does 720p recording, and a 3.7-inch AMOLED display.

HTC EVO 3D shows up in ESPN The Magazine (Update: And in EW!)

We know the HTC EVO 3D is coming soon to Sprint. We know it's coming this summer. We just don't know exactly when. And this little advertisement in ESPN The Magazine is doing its best to taunt us, and we're not happy about it one bit. Zoom in all you want, we sure don't see any clues as to when it'll be released. But don't forget that you can preorder one now at Best Buy, if you've really got an itch.

Update: And I just found one in this week's EW magazine. Pic's above. For those asking, the date you see on there is definitely 3/24.

HTC ThunderBolt Review

A familiar phone gets faster, thanks to Verizon's LTE network

It isn't very often that a smartphone has the the staying power to remain a best-seller for an entire year, and it's even more rare to see that smartphone still have a major buzz factor when it hits another carrier some 12 months after it was initially announced. That phone, of course, is the HTC EVO 4G on Sprint. And it's been revamped and revitalized as the HTC ThunderBolt -- the first 4G LTE smartphone on Verizon.

Let's just get this out of the way -- yes, the ThunderBolt is nearly a dead ringer for the Sprint EVO 4G, another HTC device. And that's a good thing. The EVO 4G was the first Wimax device, and the first Android smartphone with a 4.3-inch touchscreen, and we'd still have little problem recommending it to someone today. So it was of little surprise that the ThunderBolt caused such a commotion leading up to its announcement at CES in January 2011, and that frustration over the nearly three months it took until release crescendoed to a level never before seen.

But, indeed, the ThunderBolt ushers in a new era -- the LTE era -- and that means a whole new experience. So join us after the break as we break down the ThunderBolt and its place atop of the smartphone mountain.

HTC Sensation hits the FCC again, for real this time

To add to the confusion, the HTC Sensation has cleared the FCC, and this time it has a name. A few days back a phone with no name, identified only by a model number cleared the FCC, and we all thought that was the Sensation. Today we see a different phone, with a different model number, but the name HTC Sensation clearly identified, making it's way through the FCC verification process. Odds are that this time it really is the HTC Sensation. The phone has T-Mobile "4G" radios and everything else is still marked confidential. But it does say HTC Sensation, so it has to be it. Right? Right?

So to recap:

The PG58130 is the HTC Sensation according to the FCC label.

The PG59100 is the HTC Doubleshot according to information from the system dump.

The PG58100 is something with T-Mobile radios and FCC approval. Now to find out what.

ColorSnap makes painting your house a whole lot simpler

Sherwin-Williams has released its ColorSnap app for Android, and suddenly I can’t remember how I lived life without it. For someone who’s colorblind like me, the app is a downright miracle and for normal sighted folk, it’s still pretty darn useful. The concept is simple and works like a charm: snap a picture of just about anything, or use photos already in your gallery, and ColorSnap will analyze the selected portion of the pic and match it to one of their millions of paint colors. Have a portrait you want to match your walls to? Snap it and the app will get you to Sherwin-Williams’ closest matching color. Admitted, I’ll never know exactly what the heck “Quixotic Plum” is, but at least now I know it’s what I used in my 2nd grade art project. Now if only I had ColorSnap that time I accidentally painted my walls "Barney purple"… Hit the break to grab Colorsnap for free from the Android Market.

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